


your flesh will rise to the sky in ashes (but your memory is set in stone)

by BatWingsandBlackCats



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Danny's funeral, F/F, I tagged hollstein but it's extremely minor here, I'm sorry guys i just had to get this out after hearing Mel's line about the pyre, Vamp!Laura, Wakes & Funerals, total angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4910572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatWingsandBlackCats/pseuds/BatWingsandBlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She deserves her pyre and her songs."</p>
            </blockquote>





	your flesh will rise to the sky in ashes (but your memory is set in stone)

**Author's Note:**

> Figures. Massive angst pulls me out of my one-shot rut. 
> 
> Sorry for the angst, guys, I just had to get this out after hearing Mel's line about the pyre. I've always been fascinated with tribal groups and cultures, and I couldn't resist playing with the idea of a grand funeral. 
> 
> Also, as a side note, Maryne (toodrunktofindaurl) painted a beautiful comic of Danny's funeral, and I just wanted to say that any similarities were totally unintentional. I started writing this before she posted her comic, and a lot of the imagery that I already had in my head was also expressed in her painting. If you haven't seen her comic yet and you want to, go look for it on her blog because it's gorgeous. 
> 
> This piece doesn't really line up with how I think it would go in canon (I don't know that the Summers would let Kirsch into the funeral, or JP for that matter) but I really wanted to include everyone.
> 
> I listened to [Helvegen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIHOV07XoDQ) by Wardruna as I wrote this, and I don't know what the words mean, but this is what I imagined the Summer's song sounding like, and what I based it off of.
> 
> thank you so much for reading, every kudo, view, and comment is much appreciated, and I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Good luck to everyone today during the finale, eat some cookies and snuggle your Carmilla shirts and sweatshirts, and if you want, feel free to come either yell at me about this or just yell at me about the finale in my [ask box](http://batwingsandblackcats.tumblr.com/ask). I think we can all use all the moral support we can get after tonight.

_She deserves her pyre and her songs._

The battle was over. 

Laura had done the honors. 

She’d killed Vordenberg on Carmilla’s chopping block.

Theo was rotting in the catacombs.

Silas was decimated. The grounds were dotted with still smoldering fires, with discarded swords and tridents and bodies and severed limbs and charred wood and blood, blood, so much blood. Recovery of the dead was slow work, but it was moving along, students moving from body to body like reapers, silent in the dim light of the setting sun. The Alchemy Club helped where they could, those who could stomach it, preparing the bodies to be buried. 

On the North Quad, a pile of wood, cut from the trees the Zetas had felled, stood four feet high and seven feet long, stuffed with the ripped out pages of dozens of books for tinder. Everyone had brought their favorite. Even Carmilla had offered up her first edition of The Stranger. The pyre was topped, padded like a mattress with evergreen boughs, and draped in freshly picked vines that had formerly crawled up the side of the Summer Society house. The little white flowers that had grown around the sorority house had been picked, and scattered across the evergreen branches, and bundles of fiery orange tiger lilies grown in the Alchemy Club greenhouse bordered the top of the pyre, their bioluminescent petals glowing like flames in the dim light, in honor of her fiery locks that had so wildly fallen in her eyes in her last moments. Bluebells and lavender were tucked in between the lilies, for her eyes. Crimson rose petals scattered for the blood she’d spilt. A bonfire burned at each corner.

Laura had asked to see the body when the battle was over. Mel let her through, parting the wall of sisters that stood between the little brunette and Danny’s body, which rested upon the oak table that sat in the dining room of the Summer Society house. In her hand, Laura carried a bundle of lavender and little white wildflowers, and in the other, she carried her magnifying glass necklace. 

The room was softly lit with candles and smelled of incense, of spruce and smoke and wet leaves. The lamps were turned down low, creating a glowing golden aura around the form under the white sheet. Mel pulled back the sheet and Laura willed her tears not to fall, but they did anyways. The Summers had washed Danny’s body of blood, washed and combed her hair. She looked peaceful, her eyes closed and her hair fanned around her. The scrapes on her face had been washed clean, and they’d dressed her in her favorite red and white baseball shirt. In a soft voice, Laura asked Mel to help her turn Danny on her side, just for a moment. Mel had looked confused, but complied, and held Danny on her side as Laura set down the items she carried. Small hands plucked the flowers from their stems, and she placed them gently inside the wound, first the lavender, and then the little white flowers. Mel watched in silence as Laura dressed the wound, covering every bit of it, mending it in her own way. Laura had helped Mel lay Danny on her back once more, and then tenderly clasped the magnifying glass around her neck. She ran her fingers through her soft red hair, making sure none had gotten caught in the chain. Mel had let her lay the sheet over Danny once again, and watched as Laura left the room in silence.

The funeral was three days after the battle. Those who wished to pay their respects were allowed, though Kirsch was the only former Zeta allowed anywhere near the pyre. He’d snapped his trident before dressing in black and taking his place next to Laura. Mel had let him wear the stag headdress, and another sister had hesitated for a moment before drawing a line in red war paint from his forehead down to his chin, and one starting from each eye and running down his cheeks and down his neck. An honorary Summer mourning an honorary Zeta. Tears made the paint run, and it dripped from his chin onto the yellow rose he held in shaking hands. He didn’t want to call her that anymore.

Laura stood, eyes trained on the empty pyre, her eyes calm though red and tired and her cheeks wet. Her fangs pressed gently into her bottom lip. She didn’t know how to retract them yet. Carmilla had let her borrow some of her clothes, seeing as she didn’t own much black, and in her quiet hands she held asphodel. The Summers all nodded to her in respect and thanks for holding their fallen sister as she slipped away, but they did not grace her with war paint. Perry and LaFontaine stood on Laura’s other side, both donning blacks and grays, their blue eyes tired and red.

JP was the only other vampire allowed to witness the ceremony. 

All eyes turned in the direction of the Summer Society house as the pounding of a deep drum began, slow and wavering in the air. Summers carrying torches surrounded the bearers, who carried Danny on a long shield nailed to two poles, and emblazoned with the Summer Society crest. The shield was padded much like the pyre, draped with evergreen boughs and vines and little white flowers and crimson rose petals. The Summers had all donned their war clothes and their war paint once more, their hair woven into braids and their bows on their backs, quivers at their hips. Their voices rose into the air, singing slow and hypnotic almost, in a tongue Laura couldn’t understand. Thunder clapped overhead, but Laura’s eyes never left the body on the stretcher.

The Summer’s singing slowly grew faster and louder as they drew closer to the pyre, their voices solemn, rattles and bells joining the drums. The procession moved slowly, Mel walking behind the bearers, mourners tossing flowers in the bearer’s path. The Summer’s voices grew louder, their words coming quicker as the drums picked up their pace, though their feet did not as they reached the pyre. 

Laura watched as the bearers lowered the stretcher to the pyre, nestling her among the tiger lilies and the lavender and the bluebells. The singing narrowed to Mel’s voice as she sang the last verse, only the slow drum accompanying her once again. Her voice carried over the quad, wavering, though she finished strong.

They had left her in her red and white baseball tee and her jeans with the hole in the right knee that had gotten ripped after falling on the track, and her beat up chucks, and they had left Laura’s necklace around her neck an Laura’s flowers in her back. Her hair was fanned out over the blanket they had folded under her head. Laura had remembered seeing it formerly folded at the foot of Danny’s bed all those months ago. In her cold hand Danny clasped her strung bow, and in the other, three arrows, her arms crossed over her chest. Her face bore the same paint she’d worn when she’d burst into Laura’s dorm, demanding that she stay safe from flying anchovies and paintballs. Fresh tears slid down Laura’s cheeks. God, that felt so long ago. The Summers had woven her a crown of of sage and traveller’s joy flowers, and those tiny white wildflowers that only grew under the south bay window of the Summer Society house were tucked into her hair fanned out around her, little dots of white amidst flames. 

Mel said the eulogy, though Laura didn’t hear her. She was sure whatever Mel said was beautiful, though. Mel might not have liked her, but she’d respected her. 

Kirsch stepped forward as another crack of thunder sounded overhead, and laid the yellow rose on Danny’s chest, and briefly touched her hand before stepping back between JP and Laura. Laura brushed his hand with her own.

Mel called the names of some of the Summers that wished to say goodbye, and Laura watched them all in a daze, as if through water. Even Perry and LaFontaine stepped forward to pay their respects. 

Mel called Laura’s name last. 

Laura stepped forward and laid the asphodel on Danny’s chest beside Kirsch’s rose, and tenderly wrapped her hand around Danny’s, the tears flooding her eyes. She uttered the first words to pass her lips in hours.

“I’m not scared,” She whispered, and then took a breath. “I’m not scared,” She said again, louder this time, her hand tightening on Danny’s. 

_”I’m not scared.”_

Kirsch joined her the fourth time she said it.

_“I’m not scared.”_

Summers slowly joined in, and after a few more chants JP, LaFontaine, and Perry joined in, their voices soft but gaining in volume as more and more people joined in in Laura’s chant of Danny’s last words.

“I’m not scared.”

_“I’m not scared.”_

**“I’m not scared!”**

**“I’M NOT SCARED!”**

Laura forced herself to let go of Danny’s hand and stepped back as Mel and another Summer lit their arrows and drew their bows in preparation to light the blaze, though her chant didn’t stop.

**“I’M NOT SCARED!”**

There was a whistle and two dull thunks as the flaming arrows wedged themselves into the wood of the pyre, and crackling sounded around the quad, slowly growing in volume as the book pages caught fire, coaxing the rest of the pyre slowly to flame.

**“I’M NOT SCARED!”**

Carmilla didn’t show but a roar could be heard across the quad, and Laura knew it wasn't to honor Danny but to thank her for watching over her and being there for her when Carmilla wasn’t and couldn’t. 

**“I’M NOT SCARED!”**

Rain began to fall as the flames slowly engulfed the pyre, flames singeing and consuming the book pages and then the flowers and the logs of felled trees and the smoke grew thick and mourners chanted into the night and in the rain until their throats were raw and and their clothes were soaked and the last sparks faded into the sky. 

_”I’m not scared.”_

**Author's Note:**

> The flowers in Danny's crown and the flowers that Kirsch and Laura lay on her chest all have a certain meaning according to Victorian flower language:
> 
> yellow rose--friendship  
> asphodel--my regrets follow you to the grave  
> sage--wisdom, great respect  
> traveler's joy--rest, safety
> 
> thanks again so much for reading!


End file.
